


Duo

by afrocurl



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-09
Updated: 2008-01-09
Packaged: 2018-02-13 11:31:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2149128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are only two left.  This is how they deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duo

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://supergoddesss.livejournal.com/profile)[**supergoddesss**](http://supergoddesss.livejournal.com/) for the 2007 [](http://vm-santa.livejournal.com/profile)[**vm_santa**](http://vm-santa.livejournal.com/) Thanks to [](http://starxd-sparrow.livejournal.com/profile)[**starxd_sparrow**](http://starxd-sparrow.livejournal.com/) for the beta. At this point, all mistakes are my own. I hope this is the right amount of angst for you, but there's a happy ending . (Totally safe for you [](http://havemy-heart.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://havemy-heart.livejournal.com/)**havemy_heart**. ;) )

Two girls nestle themselves on either side of him as he watches the casket slowly sink down into the ground. The smaller girl sobs into his jacket while the other brushes back a tear, watching the mahogany box that carries her brother into a place where he will be free of life in Neptune forever.

Logan stands tall, comforting the women who loved his friend the most as the priest recites the burial rite. _Ashes to ashes; dust to dust._ Just like a dream, he thinks.

He brings each girl closer to his chest before they slowly move to throw handfuls of dirt over the coffin.

If he’s honest, this is the most fucked up thing he could imagine happening in Neptune.

-*-

Three weeks after Duncan’s lifeless body was found, Lilly leaves Neptune for France and a “recuperation period” as Celeste says coldly over the phone.

His heart aches at the lose of another part of his haven—the one that took his mind off of Aaron, pain, and vodka swimming in his mother’s stomach.

His finger idles over the four key on his phone, mind racing for how to tell the one surviving member that their foursome is now a duo. There’s a part of him that thinks Lilly would have told her BFF before winging her way to Paris, but there’s another part of him that knows how absentminded Lilly is when it comes to crucial details of teenaged life.

The button is cold against his thumb before he brings up the metal to his ear. He doesn’t want to be the bearer of bad news yet again, but she deserves to know just as much as he did.

“Hey,” she answers quietly. He can hear the hesitation after, the hiccup that makes him shiver.

“Hey,” he responds, unsure of how this conversation should actually progress. He’s never been a fan of letdowns—and knowing how much she’d already suffered makes him more cautious. “Heard from Lil today?” He tries to sound light when everything in him says that the days of sun and fun are long over.

“I tried her phone, but it went straight to voicemail,” she breathes.

“Oh, might be because she’s on her way to France.”

“What?” she questions, energy back into her words—just like _before_.

“She went to France to ‘deal’, according to Celeste.”

The sobs that he hears on the other end tell him all he needs to know about her reaction. “I’ll be over in twenty minutes,” he says.

-*-

He’s never been the one to comfort her—there was never a need when they were all together—but he has to now.

His hand rings the doorbell, waiting for someone to let him in. There’s something about this trip to her house that makes him aware that it will always be different—a starting point of his new relationship with Veronica.

He finally notices that Lianne has opened the door moments later, a quiet, but noticeable cough escaping her lips. “Come in,” she intones, leaving the door open for him to walk through.

“She’s in her room.”

“Figured,” he replies, his hands shuffling against his pants—expelling the nervous energy—before he walks into her room.

The knock is light against her door, his attempt at not adding more stress into her life. After a beat, he enters.

Immediately he sees her curled up into a corner of her bed, clutching one of Duncan’s old jackets for dear life. Hiccups and sobs are muffled by the jacket, but he can tell she hasn’t stopped crying since he got off the phone with her.

He’s on the bed faster than he thought possible, all in the name of her protection. “Come here?” he asks, hoping she’ll unwrap herself from the corner long enough to talk.

Focusing on the way she shifts her legs from against her chest, he tries to think of what he could say to help her; so much of his time with her tells him that she won’t stop for another few days.

Instead of talking, he holds her, much like he did at the funeral. Whispers in her ear to calm her down, gentle strokes against her back—anything to tell her that he’s not leaving.

_He’ll never leave her now._

-*-

They sit alone at lunch—away from their _friends_ \--away from the stories and the gossip and everything that they want to forget.

He suggests that they start again—start _over_ , really—when they both go back to school. It's his way of making everything he does with her more special and it’s all he can do to make up the way that both Kane siblings left her life.

He makes the plans now. She’s too quiet and pliable against him—nothing like the bright girl he knew before. He sees her nod her agreement, and they go about sitting at the beach or whatever else he manages to think up when he sees that look on her face—the one that tells him she’s on the verge of falling and never returning.

-*-

Some days he watches as the spark comes back into her face. She’ll be smiling that smile she had when she played soccer and he wants to keep her like that. He wants her to never know that nothing else will change _them_ , though he’s not sure how he can keep up the little lie they’ve built.

Just as soon as the spark covers her face, it falls—deep down into her body—away from him.

The next time it appears, he’s sure she’ll be better, but the fuzzy part of his brain knows that it’s just wishful thinking.

-*-

He keeps secrets from her. He doesn’t want to, but he knows that she’s not strong enough to handle the truth. The knowledge she’s long since replaced Lilly as the image burned into his brain as he strokes himself will never leave the confines of his room, much to his dismay.

Others filter into his brain now and again—more things that she’ll never want to know—and he suppresses them each time with another shot of vodka.

-*-

He holds her tightly, bodies pressed together, as the languid beat of the songs lulls all of the couples into a synchronized sway. It seems that the dress she’s wearing is the same as last year, and he lets that memory slip over the rest that fill his brain. There is no limo this year—no bottles of champagne, no trip to the beach—just the two of them, dancing.

There’s a small smile on her face, one that reaches almost to her cheeks, and it elates him. She’s moving on, and he’s the one there to lead her.

-*-

The awkward pause that stretches and strains into silence when he walks her to the door doesn’t escape him—he’s learned to catalog her movement and mood in an effort to keep her together, to bolster the tiny pieces of her life that fit into his.

Shaking hands, he reminds himself, are a sign that she’s nervous. Due to what, he can’t tell. He never knows until she cries out in broken pain, cries that are later muffled against his chest.

Watching her intently, he waits for her to sob out her latest problem. Instead, he watches as she leans forward to him and kisses him on the cheek. His hands wrap around her instinctively, bringing her closer, before he lets his lips ghost against hers.

It is nothing like kissing Lilly, he knows, but as his hands continue to hold onto the smaller girl, he thinks that this is better.

Sweetness is something he hasn’t known in ages—something that he wants to bottle up and savor forever.

-*-

He’s good at hiding from her. He never figured it would happen, but after their kiss, his eyes can't meet hers.

It feels like betrayal—something he hasn’t felt in months.

He keeps their lunch date but he can’t look at her. Instead, he quietly eats whatever he can bum off Casey, Dick, or John, and wishes the thirty-five minutes of lunch would pass.

The bell rings, and he jumps at the chance to escape the unbearable silence. He tries not to notice the crestfallen look on her face as he leaves—it hurts too much and reminds him that he’s the only thing she has left at the school.

His only response at the end of the day to it is to drink away the thoughts of how he _can’t_ spend all his time with Veronica.

-*-

His eyes won’t focus on the screen in front of him, not one bit. He can’t seem to stare long enough to understand the email he has from Lilly.

_I'm coming home for Thanksgiving. See you in three weeks!_

The shock is unwanted, and his only response is another night of drinking away the pain.

Once the tequila settles into his system, his hands tug harshly against his body—his mind on Veronica.

-*-

It is harder to avoid Lilly than he ever imagined. She’s at his house the moment she’s off the jet, asking about life without her fabulous self.

His urge to yell at her grows as each story of Pierre or Antoine falls out of her mouth.

He pushes her out when he can stand no more and calls Veronica, pleading for forgiveness.

There’s an empty feeling in his heart when she says that she needs time.

-*-

His eyes notice her absence from _their_ table. Now he knows she’s upset.

Food disinterests him, and instead, he sits alone at the table, thinking of better days.

-*-

He’s at her door that night, knocking as loudly as he can. Her mom answers the door, telling him Veronica’s not available. Quickly pushing past her, be bounds into his friend’s room, pleading his case.

Voice horse, he collapses into the carpet before she comes to him.

The whisper that escapes her lips fills him with joy, and he stays on her floor for hours before leaving.

-*-

His hand wraps around hers quickly, walking in sync into the sunshine of the early afternoon.

It has been good for them since his earnest confession. Aired grievances gave way to their old familiar pattern of spending most waking hours side by side.

They share an extra large plate of manicotti, and it doesn’t surprise him at all when she eats almost all of it.

-*-  
The feeling of a locker handle hits him hard. Harder than he imagined possible from someone who barely stood five feet tall, he thinks as be blinks away the pain from the cool metal against his back.

He feels her hands against his chest before her lips meet his, but after that, he’s lost in the sensation of her with him.

The days between their kiss after Homecoming and today seem like mere seconds now.

He welcomes being lost in her more than ever.

-*-

The feel of her body flush against his fills him with a joy he hasn’t felt in months. He knows that she’s pressed against him on his couch, blissfully unaware of anyone else in the world.

Tongue parting her lips, his mouth devours hers. It feels like drowning, but he’s more than willing to die together.

-*-

He’s nervous, quickly knocking on her door this time. He has no emergency that requires him to push past whichever parent answers the door.

Playing with the inside of his pants pocket, he waits before her father opens the door and mumbles for him to enter.

He’s polite—an effort that he hasn’t had to make before—so that everything with be _perfect_ for them now.

The thought crosses his mind that this isn’t the first time he’s been over to her house, but then the fact that he’s there as her _boyfriend_ changes everything.

The feeling of her foot against his causes a small smile to creep across his face. He tries to hide it in a quick sip of water, but part of him knows the Sheriff can tell.

In the moment, it doesn’t matter, because for the first time in seven months, he’s happy.

\--

Feedback is appreciated.


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